


Midnight Games

by Pigeon_theoneandonly



Series: Nathaly Shepard [6]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Strip Poker, Suggestive Themes, and shepard is competitive about everything, kaidan is known to be an excellent poker player but he usually isn't this distracted, me3 era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22552402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pigeon_theoneandonly/pseuds/Pigeon_theoneandonly
Summary: Kaidan Alenko and Nathaly Shepard find ways to amuse themselves and keep the stress of the war at bay.
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard
Series: Nathaly Shepard [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1255094
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	Midnight Games

Kaidan watched Nathaly Shepard glance at her cards, and toss a twenty-credit chip onto the table, for all credits meant anything this late in the reaper war. “Called.”

It was 0200. The _Normandy’s_ worn-out skeleton crew slept. Certainly no one else but Kaidan and her occupied the lounge. Shepard had trouble sleeping long before reapers ever crossed their path, and Kaidan… Well, Kaidan had plenty to keep him up at night lately. If it wasn’t worrying about his students or his parents or Nathaly herself, it was the after-effects of a migraine, because every mission seemed to push him a little further past his limits, and his implant made its unhappiness plain.

So they found ways to amuse each other. Poker, for the moment. If anyone had been awake, he was sure they’d be surprised. Make some smarmy comment about better ways to use the wee hours of the morning. And the truth was, their sex life had improved as the war dragged on— in quantity, anyway. Reaching for each other, for that hit of oxytocin. Longing for the brief oblivion of intimacy to combat the sheer existential loneliness that came from the things they saw on the ground. Pushing past exhaustion, towards something familiar and comforting. They trusted each other enough to be that honest about what it was, and what they needed from it.

Their sex life was a lot of things lately. But it wasn’t particularly sexy.

Looking at Nathaly across the table now, however, Kaidan found himself just enough rested, just enough distant from the latest round of horrors, and just deep enough into interstellar space, to crave a little sexiness. So he pushed his own stockpile of chips aside. “I have a better idea.”

She raised one red eyebrow. God, but he loved that particular expression of hers. It did things to him, that little hint of intrigue buried under a certain impatience, warning against wasting her time. In four years, he’d not once been bothered by her outranking him as an officer or now as a spectre. Quite the contrary.

He met her eyes, letting a small, familiar smirk settle on his face. “If I win, you have to remove a piece of clothing.”

Her surprise was plain, but from her sly answering grin, she was also into it. “Fine. I bet my boots.”

He couldn’t help a chuckle. “Not very confident in this hand? Okay, I bet my shirt.”

They laid down their cards. She won the hand easily. Kaidan blinked— she never out-bluffed him.

Nathaly sat back, smug. “Your libido is messing with your strategy, Major.”

He glared, a kind of mock-resentment that only broadened her self-satisfied smirk. Then he stood, pulled his shirt loose from his pants and belt. Plucked it by the back of the neck and yanked it over his head in one smooth gesture. The shirt dropped to the ground.

She was all appreciation as he settled back in his seat. Aside from a handful of half-healed injuries, the war had been nothing but kind to his physique. Both of theirs, really. He tried not to think about it, because if he couldn’t manage to win a hand, he won’t get to see so much as an inch of her own taut brown stomach, to say nothing of anywhere else.

Nathaly dealt this time. He glanced at his cards and tried not to let his dismay go to his face. Nathaly evaluated hers, and said, “Belt.”

“Belt.” It seemed safe. If he couldn’t make this hand turn out, it would buy him another turn.

They traded out their cards. Kaidan managed to put together a pair of sevens. He laid them down with some trepidation, but as Nathaly saw them, she merely heaved a sigh and stood. It was a standard-issue navy utility belt, thick and weighty. She held his eyes as her fingers unlatched the heavy buckle. The smallest of shakes to loosen it, and a slow pull as she unwrapped it from her hips and draped it on the table. Her waist looked almost bare without it.

Almost.

She slid the deck back to him. He shuffled and dealt, struggling to keep his mind on the game. They looked at their hands, discarded, drew. She weighed her options. Glanced up at him and bit her lip. “Shirt.”

His eyebrows rose. Glanced from his cards to her face, and saw only perfect confidence. But his hand was very good. It didn’t seem possible… Maybe he could get a raise. “Pants.”

Nathaly smirked. “Called.”

They threw down. He stared in utter disbelief and dismay at her straight. 

She cackled and sat back, crossing her arms. “Well?”

Her gaze created a palpable pressure on his body as he rose. Fished around under his own belt, awkwardly, undoing the button and finding the zipper. Having to pause a moment when she licked her lips as he pulled it down.

 _Focus, Kaidan._ He had to win another hand. At least two. He took a breath, slid them off in a rush, and sat back down, all business, shaking his feet out of the legs. Nathaly suppressed a laugh. 

But his luck was against him. He lost his own belt in the next round, and shoes after that. He managed to get her boots. Down to his last two pieces of clothing, he stared at the deck as it moved through her fingers, begging for a real break. It was unfathomable that this would end with her walking out near full-dressed. He’d not lost this badly in years.

His next hand wasn’t terrible. But the stakes were high. “Socks.”

“Pants.” Looking at him over her cards, daring him to call.

Kaidan knew he should fold. She wasn’t good enough at poker to bet so high for no reason unless she was sure. Temptation won. He sucked in a breath, and offered the only equivalent item he had left. “Underwear.”

“Tsk.” She set down her cards. A pair of jacks, and a second of fours.

He stared, not quite believing it. Nathaly arched her eyebrow. “Game over. Pay up.”

Slowly, he laid down his own hand. Triple nines. The smirk dropped off her face.

His turn to be smug. “Well?”

The heated look he got in return wasn’t annoyed, or even exasperated. In a low whisper, she said, “You earned it.”

Kaidan had forgotten how much she liked to tease him. She turned around, and looked at him over her shoulder as she undid the front, and slowly wriggled her pants over her hips and drew them further down. Revealing, inch by inch, that fantastic muscular ass shaped by fifteen years of combat training.

Then, with no fuss at all, she sat primly on her chair and crossed her legs. Kaidan blinked. Her sly smile held no hint of cockiness. More like she’d noticed his fixation, and was ready herself to finish up.

But there was still one hand left to play. He took the deck. Shuffled on autopilot. Dealt.

Nathaly inspected her hand, and exchanged a card. He glanced at his own. A pair of sixes wasn’t strong, but it was all or nothing time, and a new card hadn’t improved it. Kaidan sucked in a breath. “Underwear.”

She still had a shirt left, and a bra. Conceivably equal. But she looked him in the eye, and said, “Called.”

They showed their cards. All the tension went out of him. He sat back with a chuckle.

Nathaly looked between their hands, dumbfounded. “I don’t understand. How?”

“Maybe someone’s libido got the better of her strategy.” He couldn’t have stopped himself for the world.

That earned him a roll of her eyes. But she got to her feet, and moved to the center of the room. Tucked a thumb into the waistband of her panties. Paused a moment. “I might need a little help.”

She didn’t have to ask him twice.


End file.
